Battle Road 04 Pictures

Living in the Boston area, we tend to take the historical significance of the area for granted. Other than the occasional school field trip (when we were young), we almost never visit any of the area's historical attractions. As it happened, Beth had a school assignment that required her to visit local areas of cultural significance. With that excuse, the family went off to explore the Minuteman National Historical Park by bicycle.

The Minuteman National Historical Park is small national park in Lexington, Lincoln and Concord Massachusetts on the site famous road where the Revolutionary War started. The larger part of park follows a section of "Battle Road", where the British Regulars fought off a series of bloody attacks by the Colonial militia men during their long walk back to Boston after having attacked Concord. The park includes a five mile long walking and bike trail that follows Battle Road, as well as a visitor's center and a restored 18th century tavern -- Hartwell Tavern.

We had biked down the Battle Road Trail before. (In fact, some of the pictures on this page are from a trip we took down the trail in June of 2003.) However, in the past we just went for a bike ride; this time, we wanted to explore the park and take in some of the historical programs.

We started the bike ride at Fiske Hill, at the easternmost end of Minuteman National Historical Park (off Mass. Ave, just west of Route 95 in Lexington). We rode for the full length of the trail, to Meriam's Corner and back. Along the way, we stopped to spend some time in the Minuteman Visitor's Center. There is an excellent multimedia presentation at the visitor's center that explains the events surrounding the British fateful march and Paul Rever's famous ride.

Further down the trail, we spent time at the Hartwell Tavern where there were a number of people dressed in period costumes, giving demonstrations. The most interesting (and photogenic) was the demonstration of the British Musketman including a test firing of a recreated weapon (but without the musket ball).

Anyway, here are some pictures that I took from Battle Road Trail. All the pictures were taken with our Canon S400 Digital Elph camera, the pocket size point and shoot. (I did not post the originals to save server space, sorry.)

Jun 15, 2003 Captain William Smith house (108Kb)	Jun 15, 2003 Hartwell Tavern (125Kb)	Jun 15, 2003 Inside Hartwell Tavern (59Kb)	Jun 15, 2003 Actor in period clothing (61Kb)	Jun 15, 2003 The british are coming (39Kb)	Jun 15, 2003 Mile marker along Battle Road (64Kb)
May 29, 2004 Beth had to read the signs for a school project (131Kb)	May 29, 2004 Paul Revere capture site (128Kb)	May 29, 2004 Period soldier in front of Hartwell Tavern (68Kb)	May 29, 2004 Actor in period costume (61Kb)	May 29, 2004 This is the pointy thing (55Kb)	May 29, 2004 This is what you do with the pointy thing (106Kb)
May 29, 2004 You load the powder like this (88Kb)	May 29, 2004 And point the gun like this (88Kb)	May 29, 2004 Don't I look dashing in my uniform (64Kb)	May 29, 2004 This is how we deal with unruly tourists (56Kb)	May 29, 2004 Close up of period soldier (69Kb)	May 29, 2004 Rock band from the 1700s (92Kb)
May 29, 2004 This is the only medic my HMO would pay for (101Kb)	May 29, 2004 The viewing tubes did not help much (55Kb)	May 29, 2004 Battle Road trail passes this farm house (123Kb)	May 29, 2004 Beth studies the historical note (107Kb)	May 29, 2004 The trail includes walkways through wet areas (64Kb)	May 29, 2004 Field after field after field (84Kb)

This web page (http://www.gouldhome.com/thumbnails.html) was last updated on October 14, 2007. For any comments or suggestions about the site contact Daphne Gould. Contents copyright © 1999-2003 by Joel and Daphne Gould.